All we knew as of Saturday night, was that the results as announced were NOT official, and there were in fact corrections that needed to be made. So we'll save the arguments and confusion and not post results for all classes until we get the nod from Sandy at BITD that they are good to go. What we will tell you is what was announced Saturday afternoon, and what the riders themselves had to say about the day. 82 total entrants, 67 finished; 21 of the finishers were quads. (By the way - wonder why we are focussing on the Quads in this event, and probably the entire 2004 BITD Season? Because the only advertisers that stepped up to help bring this coverage to you were ATV-related. So if you want more MX coverage, go have a talk with your MX sponsors and we'd be glad to give them headline too... Otherwise, thank UM Performance for supporting BITD ATV Racing on Off-Road.com.) Five injury reports to pass on: one rider with compound fractured wrist, transported to hospital; one broken collarbone and cracked ribs; one simple fractured wrist, one rider with something in the eye (rider advised to seek medical attention from local ER), and one pair of badly blistered hands.
Your Winners Third place Pro went to Q8 of Ty Zimmerman and 17-year-old Sam Abeyta from New Mexico. Ty admitted they "drove a long way for this race, but had a good time." Third place Pro - yeah, I would hope so! Congrats to National Vending Racing.
The Expert
Division had a great battle, with the win decided by 2 SECONDS. Second Place Expert went to the familiar Bombardier of Lynn Prosser and lightning-fast partner Bret Greenholz. Bret came to the podium claiming it was the funnest course he had ever raced on, "except for the whoops." Accepting the plaque, Bret thanked Mitchell for rubbing it in about the close finish, and all Lynn could say was to agree - "2 seconds...." Thanks to Maier, Big Gun, Maxxis, Scott, Clarke, Big Joes Cycles and Moose, for making the stuff that helps them go fast. First place Amateur, 53rd overall out of the 67 finishers, was Q73 Richard Youngblood, running Ironman on a Raptor in 5 hours, 59 minutes, 47 seconds. He said he had a "rough day today," and thanked Q70 Shaun Kuriyama's parents for the pit assistance. How was it for the rest of the field? He couldn't hardly muster a word for Diane at the
finish, and they took the DNF in stride. It was a great shake-down
for the new Harley, and both learned a lot - mechanically and trail
experience. They'll be back, and are looking for other side-car
enthusiasts to pick up their challenge.
Q10
Mike Johnson and Jason Rayburn were 8th quad across the finish, and
said they Q7 Michael Cafro & Danny Prather said the tires had been great, but they had problems with the bike not wanting to start if it stalled out. Q5 broke something on the final lap, and rode the last 70 miles standing up. He was beat, and we couldn't tell under the helmet if it was Steve Beilman or Greg Row. Pro Q9 Shaun Moore and Nic Granlund lost a muffler, and thanked their pit crew for rapid work, jumping in and helping them finish the race. Q64, our "Guilty" Team of Eric Pealstrom and Marc Choquette, came across as third place Expert (we think). They were "ready to go again!", and wanted a shot to catch those "guys in front of us." And, since on course that was the Expert Class winning team Q45, even keeping them in sight says the guys were pulled out of retirement just in time to help keep the Expert class very competitive. That's it for now - Sandy at BITD promisses results late Sunday night, and we'll see if any of these announced results change. We'll bring you full class finishes, time on course, and all the Mini racing results. Until the Terribles' Town 250 in April, we're outta here!
*Enjoy the photo galleries (see the link in the
orange table at the top of this page). If you want to buy a
high-res version of the file so you can have prints made, let us
know. We know that the dust shows badly on the images as they
appear, and much can be cleaned out. From the original, we can crop
the photo to feature your rider, sharpen the image, adjust lighting
or reduce some of the dust. We can't do magic, but we'll do our
best.
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New
this year for the Parker 250 was the "Parker Python", a section of
well-watered switchbacks, motocross style jumps and banked turns
with a spectator viewing area, splitting the main pit area. For the
most part, this was a big success. While there were a few riders
getting caught offguard, we saw no crashes there, no one came
unseated. Riders rode to their ability for the most part, or saved
their ass well.
First quad across the finish line was
Q2 of Wayne Matlock and Chad Prull. Chad was looking a little beat,
getting on the bike at the alternate pit for the final 40 mile
section and finding no 4th gear. That made for a very challenging
ride through the long high-speed section of whoops. He knew he was
up against a 50 second lead that Doug Eichner's team had on them at
one point, but was unaware if they had made up all the time they
needed to. There was a 5-minute difference in their start time, so
he was very anxious at the finish as he watched the minutes tick
away and calculated the split. When the needed 5 minutes passed,
and then in fact more than 10 minutes before the Q1 Team of Eichner
& Mark Spaeth came to the podium, he knew they (Q2) had 8th
overall and the first Pro Win of the year for Team Alba, Pro Design
and Suzuki.
Second place Pros Eichner
& Spaeth, pulled a 15th overall. Thanks out to ITP for no
flats, to their new "screaming fast" Honda, and to Rocky at Golden
West Cycle, IMS, 
The
sidecar, Q95, came into the finish area and caught the scorers and
spectators by surprise - after taking almost three hours to
complete their first lap, they did pick up the pace considerably on
lap two. However, after having the chain come off five times,
driver Scott Whitney and "monkey" Craig Whitney called it quits
after two laps. Scott had had a wonderful day and was ready to go
again, simply calling the course "rugged", but Craig was obviously
beat. (If you've never watched a side-car team in action, for the
monkey it is rather like riding a desert race while doing step
aerobics...)
The Kawasaki VForce of Jimmy Stephensen and Greg Stuart
sounded like a jet when it took off, but was unfortunately a DNF.
Early in the race, they broke a masterlink. Got that fixed, then on
final lap, something more serious in the motor let go and they were
done. The chain drive conversion work was all done by SkatTrak,
Kevin Avina had the bike for one week for race prep, and we'll be
following along with future testing.
Pro
Q15 Colby Turner came to the finish, and all we could give him was
our "best guess" that they may be as high as 4th, or as low as 8th.
The top Pros were so close, it depends on how accurate our ol'
wristwatch is, if there are any on-course penalties, who knows.
Colby called it over to teammate Jeff Hancock and then hit the road
with the latest ORC test quad, a Yamaha YFZ450 for his official
shakedown.
And Team
ORC? The move to the Z400 got thumbs up all around, and while the
team has more work to do on the quad to get it where they need it
for true hard-core racing reliability, they scored a day with no
flats, no major mechanical failures, no high-speed dismounts. Rider
Cliff Failes did give us a spectacular look at the PRM skidplate
across the final tabletop of the Parker Python... and a very
surprised look on his face. The team's only incident the entire day
was the zip-ties rubbing through the wires from the key switch to
the ignition, finally causing them to short out. Justin rode it,
sputtering, on to a checkpoint on the final lap, where BITD
volunteers helped him hot wire it back together and get him to the
finish. Time lost in diagnosis and fix was about 60 minutes. We
don't know the exact placing at this time, but we're looking at
probably 5th or 6th. In Expert class after racing one year, we'll
take it. (Okay - final results - that 60 minutes cost Team ORC a
solid 4th place. Did end up 6th.)
